Hostile Fire (18 page)

The transmission went out in a quick burst when Murdock pushed the button. They looked at each other in the darkness.

“Okay, troops, we move. Rafii and I out front with the
sub guns, Gypsy with her AK follows us by ten yards and Ching brings up the rear with the other AK. If ten yards is too far to see each other, close it up. We’ll stay at least fifty off the dirt track. Rafii, you keep the road in sight; I’ll be on your left. Remember, this is a silent move. No firing unless you need to, to save your skin. Let’s move.”

There was almost no moon out and Murdock was both pleased and worried about that. A little moonlight would help them stay together and keep the road in sight. Too much and they’d be easy targets. He brought out the thermal imager and watched the area ahead as they walked. Nothing hot showed on the black screen. Then for a moment he saw something white skitter across the view screen and disappear. A desert hare, maybe a coyote. Did they have coyotes in the Syrian Desert? Murdock didn’t know. He watched where he walked now and scanned ahead every two or three minutes.

They had moved out less than five hundred yards when Rafii dropped to the ground. Murdock saw him and went down. Behind him he saw the other two drop to the rocky desert sand. A moment later two sets of headlights bored through the darkness and they heard the growl of truck engines. Rafii skittered back beside Murdock.

“Sounds like they are loaded,” Rafii said. “Hope they aren’t hauling the bombs out to some strategic airstrip. Does Iraq have any planes big enough to haul a heavy, crudely made bomb aloft?”

“Not sure,” Murdock said. Then they stopped talking as the two trucks rolled through the dirt on the road, setting up a good cloud of dust that settled back almost in place, with no wind to whip it around.

The two trucks moved slowly, and when they were past, Rafii jumped up, moved to his position, and waved the small party forward. Murdock was glad it was trucks and not a checkpoint. They could have a dozen men strung out at outposts on both sides at a roadblock. He certainly would. He hoped the Iraqis figured they were more secure than that.

They hiked for a half hour and in the distance could see a soft glow against some low clouds. Murdock brought them together still fifty yards off the dirt track.

“Gypsy, how are you doing?”

“Great. I’m a walker at home. This is no problem. We used to do twenty-mile marches in the battalion. I’d forgotten how heavy these damn AKs really are.”

“You have some spare mags?”

“Three of them, in my shirt pockets.”

“Let’s pick up the pace. We’re going to jog for two miles and see where that gets us.” Murdock took the lead and set the pace. He didn’t want to lose Gypsy. He put her right behind him and told her to sound off if she wanted to stop. She nodded.

After the first half mile they could see the lights in the distance. Not a lot, but in total darkness just a few stood out. Then, they all snapped off in a nanosecond.

Murdock stopped the crew.

“My guess is that they know a satellite is coming over and they don’t want the lights to show. Damn smart of them. We’ve got the direction. We must be another three miles away. Let’s keep moving. The satellite will be gone in ten or fifteen minutes. My guess is that the lights will come back on then.”

They hiked forward again, Murdock using a bright star in the lightless night for his direction. Twenty minutes after the lights snapped off, they came back. Murdock put the people down on the ground and stared at the complex. They were closer than he had expected.

They were less than half a mile from the first building. It was one story and a line of trucks was parked near it as if waiting to unload.

“Damn,” Ching said. “No fences, no barbed wire, no guard towers, just that one building and about twenty lights around it. Where is the factory?”

“Underground like the man told us,” Murdock said. “That building must be an elevator housing to get goods down to the people working and living below.”

“So where are the two hundred troops?” Gypsy asked. “They can’t defend much underground.”

“We might be right on top of them,” Murdock said. “If I were defending this place, I’d take twenty squads of ten men each and position them in a ring around the factory. Put them
out five hundred yards, which means we could be stumbling on them if they are there.”

“Wait and listen” Rafii said. “These troops are well known for lack of discipline—jingling equipment, laughter, even smoking.”

The other three looked at Murdock. “So we move and we listen,” Murdock said in a soft whisper. “For starters we head due east away from the factory. We get out another half mile, then go south again to circle this place. Quiet, and listen for any enemy sounds. Rafii, lead out east.”

Murdock dropped back beside Gypsy. He reached out for the rifle and she shook her head; then when he caught the barrel, she nodded and let go of the ten pounds of rifle and rounds. Murdock shouldered it with the muzzle up on the strap and moved forward.

They had gone what Murdock figured was almost a mile when Rafii dropped to the ground. The rest did the same. Murdock crawled up through the rocks and sand, and now and again cactus of some kind, to where Rafii lay at the edge of a wadi. The gully was twenty feet deep here and seemed to Murdock like it gradually became shallower as he looked south.

Murdock used the thermal imager. “Nothing,” he said.

“Listen,” Rafii whispered.

They did. Murdock heard it then, faintly but it was there—muted laughter, some conversation, the jingle of what could be mess gear, then a low soulful tune on a flute.

“Around, or through?” Rafii asked. “If they have a fire, we could wipe them out in our first volley.”

“Too much noise. The next squad would surely hear and send out scouts. We stay silent and go around them. Find a place we can cross this wadi without breaking our legs.”

The spot came south two hundred yards. Everyone knew about the Iraqi troops and moved silently. The flow of sudden downpour rainwater had formed a new small wadi that came in from the right, carving down the side of the larger gully. They went down there and up the far side, which wasn’t as steep. They swept east again another half mile, then turned south.

Two more miles and Murdock turned them back west
again. They could just make out the faint lights of the elevator house at the factory. Murdock figured they were two miles south of the complex now and moved another five hundred yards to hunt a wadi they could vanish into if daylight came before he expected it to.

Rafii found another wadi five minutes later, and the four of them dropped down the eight-foot slopes and rested on the smooth, dry watercourse bottom.

“We’re here,” Ching said. “Now what the hell are we supposed to do?”

“First, we tell the rest of the platoon where we are,” Murdock said. “Ching, do the honors again.”

Ching set up the SATCOM and zeroed in the antenna at the orbiting relay satellite in the sky.

“This is Underground One,” Murdock said. “We’re in position about two miles south of the factory. Nothing shows aboveground except one camouflaged elevator house. I’ve an idea it may lower into the ground when not in use. We’re waiting. I figure the factory is about eight or nine miles south of Ar Rutbah, which may put it in the Southern No-Fly Zone. How do we connect up with you guys? Out.”

Ching lifted his brows, put away the radio, and slumped against the side of the wash. Murdock moved upward so he could see over the top of the wadi, and aimed the thermal imager into a small downslope. He passed it over the area several times but came up with no hot-blooded man or animal. They hadn’t had time to work out any kind of a hookup plan before they left Kuwait. It was his job to get his platoon back together again before they attacked the factory. He shook his head. He had absolutely no idea how to contact the rest of the platoon. All he could do now was wait and see what developed the rest of the night, and hope that tomorrow in the daylight they could hide from any roving Iraqi patrols.

Saudi Arabia
Near the Iraq Border

Lieutenant (j.g.) Chris Gardner called his platoon together in the dust and dirt of the Syrian Desert fifty yards from the Iraq border. It had been a rugged day for the man now in charge of the Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven. Twenty-four hours ago they had permission from Saudi Arabia to launch an attack on the bomb factory in Iraq from Saudi soil. They had flown into the small village of Ar Ruthiyah in two helicopters. The settlement was little more than a checkpoint for entry into Iraq on a dirt road. The Saudi army presence there was twelve men and one officer. Since almost no one ever came through the Syrian Desert into Saudi Arabia over this route, the men had little to do.

They were excited about the presence of U.S. helicopters and military men. A Saudi captain made the trip to assure his countrymen that all actions were under orders. The checkpoint was less than five miles from the border.

“First, we turn on the SATCOM and keep it on at all times from now on,” J.G. Gardner said. “It’s our only link with the commander and his men in Iraq. We know that the bomb factory is somewhere south of the little Iraq town they pinpointed. Our maps show that we are about eighty miles south of that town. Our last transmission from Murdock put the bad guys maybe ten miles south of the town. So we can chopper into the area and hit an LZ five miles away from the bomb factory at night and stay unnoticed.

“From there we work north until we find the bomb site or we find Murdock and his people. Then we recon the place and figure out how to take it down and get the nukes.”

“Didn’t Murdock say there could be two hundred troops
up there?” Jaybird asked. “Where will they be while we’re doing this?”

“Fighting mad, I’d figure,” Gardner said. “That’s our job. Eliminate the troops, if they are there, then take on the factory.”

“Didn’t that transmission say the whole place was underground?” Fernandez asked.

“It did. Make it tougher, but not impossible. There must be air vents, exhaust shafts, and probably a good-sized elevator. We’ll know more once we get to check it out in the daylight.”

“How long has Murdock been in there?” Canzoneri asked.

Gardner wiped his face with his left hand, a small habit he had taken to lately. “That could be a problem. He was on his second night when he called us. That was last night. I hope we didn’t miss a transmission while we were in the air since our SATCOMs couldn’t hold on the satellite while we were flying. He’s somewhere near the bombs now and has been most of today. We’ll get in there as fast as we can with first dark, and hope he’s still ready to show us the bombs.”

“The captain says it gets dark here about eighteen hundred,” Senior Chief Neal said. “So we take off in about thirty. Everyone had his gear checked? Double ammo. Miss Garnet, do you have everything in your special kit that you’ll need?”

“Yes, sir, Senior Chief. I’m ready to go.”

“Good. Senior Chief, you’ll take Alpha Squad in one chopper and I’ll have the rest of Bravo with me,” Gardner said. “Miss Garnet with Bravo. Any questions?”

“We gonna have to walk out eighty miles?” Bradford asked.

“Not a chance. This is in the Iraq Southern No-Fly Zone. We own the air in there. We can call on air strikes if it comes to that. We have along a laser that we can use to pinpoint a target for the air jockeys. When the place is reduced and the bombs destroyed, we’ll get our same two choppers in to pull us out. They have a SATCOM on the ground here and can communicate with the radios in the choppers.”

“We’ve got a transmission, Lieutenant,” Bradford said.

“Underground One here,” the SATCOM speaker said. “Where the hell are you guys? Figured you’d be here last
night. We’ve been playing tag and catch me if you can all damn day. We’re still about five miles south of the plant. My guess is fifteen miles below that little Arab town. The natives seem to go to sleep at night here. That is the Iraq army, which is made up of the elite Home Guard. They headed back toward the factory about an hour ago. Looks like damn maneuvers out here. Squads of ten charging all over the place. They had a good workout, but never spotted us. My guess is they don’t know we’re here. You should be able to chopper in within fifteen miles of that town up there and not be heard by the Iraqis. If we hear you, we’ll spot a red flare in a wadi where you can see it and the Arabs can’t. Better go. Get in here, you guys, we got work to do.”

“That’s it, Lieutenant,” Bradford said.

“Okay, we have our LZ, fifteen south of Ar Rutbah,” Gardner said. “Let’s load up. We’re leaving fifteen early. Move it.”

Five minutes later they lifted off the ground. The pilots had plotted their route to the small city, and the distance. They would come down in an LZ at what they figured was fifteen miles due south of the town. Flying time: twenty-six minutes at 147 mph.

J.G. Gardner still worried it. He wasn’t sure he liked having a woman along on a combat mission like this one. He’d talked to her three or four times. She assured him she could use a sub gun or a rifle and that, yes, she had killed men in combat. She might have killed more than he had. He sat beside her in the chopper. She gave him a thumbs-up and he grinned. Anybody who could win a triathlon must have a lot of guts. From now on she was just another SEAL in a combat situation.

He went to the front to watch out the windows. They were about a hundred feet off the desert. As they passed fifteen minutes on the flight clock, the pilot lifted up to five hundred feet so they could spot a flare if one lit off below them. At twenty minutes they had seen nothing. At twenty-four, Gardner yelped.

“Flare, one o’clock, one red. That’s our guys. Nobody else could see their signal.” The pilot talked to the other chopper flyer and they had seen it, too. The birds came down fifty
feet apart on the desert floor fifty yards from the flare. The second the wheels touched the ground, the SEALs jumped out and ran toward the wadi. They got out of the chopper’s wash and dropped to the ground spread out in a defensive arc.

Gardner saw the men coming from the other chopper and waved them to his position.